


once upon another time (everything good)

by l_grace_b



Series: Haught Shots [3]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Gen, character introspection, post 3.07
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-05 00:24:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20479928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/l_grace_b/pseuds/l_grace_b
Summary: Everything good in my life is because I came back to the Ghost River Triangle.-----Set immediately after Nicole's final scene in 3.07.





	once upon another time (everything good)

It's dark when she finally gets home.

She collapses onto her couch, runs her hands over her face, through her hair.

_She was going to be Sheriff of Purgatory._

The next City Council meeting is next Wednesday. Her swearing-in ceremony.

Bunny Loblaw wanted to draw this out as long as she could, just out of spite.

Something about waiting for paperwork to get approved…

(Probably because, in Purgatory, the person who took care of that was the same person who ran the feed store and was only available three days a week.

_Because that’s just how this weird little town worked._)

The ceremony is mostly just for show now.

No noontime rite in the town square.

No drawn-out pinning of a silver, six-pointed star on her left breast.

Sign some papers. Shake some hands. One or two outrageously staged pictures for the newspaper.

_Sheriff._

Over the last week, Waverly was already talking her through re-decorating Nedley's--no, her--office. Some new blinds, fresh paint…

_A new couch._

Of course Waverly also wants to throw a party once she's sworn in. Invite the whole town. Close down Shorty's for the night and they'll party 'til its light out.

Or maybe just a quiet night with Waverly and Wynonna and Jeremy and Doc at the Homestead.

_Maybe even invite Robin._

Nicole _does_ want to write a speech, for when she's standing on a podium in front of city council or just with her friends--family--standing around her in the dark hall of Shorty's.

She shuffles over to her desk, grabbing a pad of paper. She returns to the couch, folding her legs underneath her. Calamity Jane leaps onto the arm and nudges her head against Nicole's shoulder. Nicole scratches her behind one of her ears.

"You were _so_ good today, girl, taking on that mean Bunny Loblaw."

She scribbles out a few lines about wanting to help people all her life, how she wants to make people feel the same way as when she was six and scared and needed a hero…

She pulls the photo Wynonna gave her from her breast pocket, and runs her fingers over the face of the little girl in the PSD cap. She smiles.

The old man had been keeping this secret the entire time.

Her fingers dance across the glossy finish. It's true she didn't exactly remember the name of the officer who came crashing through the bushes at sunrise, flashlight frantically searching the brush, looking for anyone, anyone who could've possibly survived that forest fire…The cop who then reached out his hand--nearly twice the size of her own, and it's rough but at least it's warm--and he gets her onto the shore and promptly picks her up and carries her back through the woods. His mustache tickles her cheek.

_"I've got you, kid. You're safe now."_

She has few pictures from her childhood-- her parents were too preoccupied with other things to bother giving their own daughter their attention.

She only has "official" pictures--ones people other than her parents took of her--school portraits, team photos. But they're only the proofs with the watermarks splayed across the frame.

(She hides them from Waverly.)

If the only picture she has of herself as a kid is this one, it'll be more than enough.

Nicole begins to write…

_My journey to this point was a little less coincidental than I originally thought it to be. Little did I know that journey would start on the scariest night of my life, twenty years ago…_

\---

Trauma, especially that inflicted upon such a young child, does peculiar things to the brain.

She learned that at the academy.

They refused to mentioned that night ever again.

Even when she couldn't sleep for weeks afterward.

All she wanted was for someone to tell her it was going to be okay, that she was safe.

(She wanted to keep the cap, except one day she came home from school and it was gone.

She asked her parents and they replied.

_"Oh that thing? We tossed it. You don't need it anymore."_)

Two years of sleepless nights. Never-ending nightmares.

One night--she was eight--she crawled out of bed and overheard her parents arguing.

_"That girl keeps having nightmares. This is getting ridiculous. Maybe we need to take her to a shrink."_

_"Damnit, John. No kid of mine is going to a damn shrink. I refuse to be known as the one with the crazy kid."_

Nicole didn't want to see a doctor. Not for this.

No. That would mean she was crazy.

The nightmares weren't real.

Her parents were telling her the truth.

The fire, the screaming, the kind man with the tickling mustache…

All a dream.

She didn't want to be crazy.

She wanted to be normal.

She just wanted the nightmares to end.

She never told her parents about the nightmares ever again.

She decided that night was just that--a nightmare.

So that's what it became.

Things were never the same with her and her parents after that. 

She played along with their wishes. Did relatively well in school.

She never went to them for anything bigger than needing a signature for a permission slip.

But the nightmares never stopped.

She grew from a quiet, miserable child into an angry teenager, still haunted by nightmares that her parents never soothed.

She remembers her grandparents--not quite as cold, but still insensitive to her…situation--trying to keep her on the "straight and narrow".

She told her parents she liked girls and they were actually okay with it. Or, at least indifferent to it.

Her grandparents on the other hand…

They took her in on weekends, over the summers, every school break in an attempt to "raise her properly". Meaning, taking her to church where she had to listen to sermons about how being gay was a sin, and those who claimed to be so were "confused" and "sick".

So Nicole kept her mouth shut.

To make matters worse, they forced her be involved in church activities with other kids her age.

She went to one youth group meeting and was immediately whisked away by the allure of the misguided delinquents whose families also forced them to be there.

Her first chosen family.

Until she told them she liked girls.

Even the outcasts could still be homophobic.

She still snuck away for smoke breaks when she should've been learning about the Garden of Eden and the Great Flood, but now she had to light her own cigarettes. Because it was something to do to stave off the loneliness. 

Maybe that's why she wanted to be a cop.

She wanted to help those who felt helpless, who were left in the lurch, when the world deserted them.

The night when she was fifteen and she and the other youth group-skippers were caught across the street from the church, smoking behind a gas station. They all scattered, and she was the only one caught by the cops.

The cop, actually. The cop with a thin, muscular frame, a strong face, and kind eyes, who didn't scold her, but rather gave her a piece of advice.

Treat the world better than it's been treating you.

(And to stop smoking.)

\---

She remembers Nedley taking her to Shorty's the week she moved to Purgatory.

It was early evening, the usual crowd of truck-drivers and ranchers slowly filling the bar.

She and Nedley saddled up to the old, scrubbed counter.

They're greeted by a woman with short, peppered gray hair. Her smile is kind and welcoming, but has the air of someone who isn't afraid of throwing men twice her size out of her bar at the first sign of trouble. She saunters over when she catches Nedley's eye.

"A little early today, Sheriff."

"Couldn't have a welcome tour without stopping here." He nods his head at Nicole. "Gus Gibson, meet my new deputy. Nicole Haught."

Gus raises her eyebrows as she sizes up Nicole.

"Randy's been talking up a storm about this new recruit he had coming in from one of the academies in the city. Must really know your stuff."

"Graduated top of my class." She sits up straighter, squaring her shoulders. She doesn't have many opportunities to brag about her accomplishment. She takes every chance she has. Every time she says it, it feels like another step away from a life…from people…who never wanted her.

Gus purses her lips, then nods approvingly. "Welcome to Purgatory, Nicole." She extends her hand to Nicole. "Can I interest the two of you in a drink?"

Nicole eyes the sheriff warily. He gives her an encouraging nod.

"Whiskey, rocks."

"Your new deputy knows how to drink," Gus chuckles. She pulls a highball glass out from beneath the counter and drops two ice cubes into it. "And you, Randy?"

"You know my order, Gus."

"Not tonight. We don't have your favorite in stock. That damn tap is still giving us trouble." Gus shakes her head, pouring Nicole's whiskey.

"Ginger ale for me, then."

"Suit yourself."

Nicole sips at her drink. "All due respect, sir…why did you bring me here?"

"Because part of being a good deputy is knowing your community. Because Purgatory's best and worst all come through here." Nedley leans in. "And there isn't a soul in this bar who Gus doesn't know the birthday, home address, or criminal record of. She's one of your best resources."

"You're damn right." Gus sets a tall, frosty glass of ginger ale on the bar in front of Nedley. "Eavesdropping is nine-tenths of running a bar."

Nedley grabs the glass and slides off his stool. "Better start making my rounds. I suggest you do the same." He wanders off toward one of the pool tables.

Nicole swivels around on her stool, taking stock of the bar. Pool tables, a couple of slot machines, Western memorabilia nailed to the walls. Your typical roadside dive bar.

Across the tavern, a waitress with long, brown hair leans against a table. She's casually chatting with the patrons and turns toward the bar. 

And then she smiles. 

And everything stops.

And suddenly there's light beaming from her entire being.

And something in Nicole's chest blooms and she's hoping it's just the whiskey talking.

"Um, Gus? Who's that?" Nicole points across the bar.

(She drops her hand quickly when she realizes it's shaking.)

"That's my niece. Waverly Earp."

Earp. She'd heard Wyatt supposedly ran around this corner of the universe.

"You said Earp, right? Like the--"

"Yeah," Gus replied, a bitter edge to her voice. "Her great, great-granddaddy. Spent her whole life making her own way out from her family's shadow. Got a few degrees under her belt, too."

"Wow." Nicole leans back against the bar. "What's she still doing here?"

"I ask myself that all the time. She's a special one, though." Gus winks at her, then leaves to go clear vacated tables.

"I bet she is…" Nicole takes another sip of her drink.

Waverly turns her head toward the bar, and Nicole turns her head away faster, heat creeping up the back of her neck. Her pulse quickens.

_Stop_, she chides herself. _It would be just your luck that Waverly Earp, town sweetheart, would reject you, or worse, never want you…like that._

(Nevertheless, a few weeks later, she finally mustered up the courage to ask that girl out.

And the rest…Well, everyone knows the rest.)

\----

Nicole's train of thought halts when Calamity Jane hops onto her lap, nudging her hand, the way she usually does when she's gone too long without food.

"Okay, girl. I'll feed you."

Nicole stands in her kitchen as Calamity Jane munches away at her dinner (with a few extra kibbles sprinkled on top of her dry food), still holding the picture of Nedley and her younger self. Something once hidden away in an old notebook, revealed only when the universe thought her to be ready to understand that very few things in this world happen by chance.

She finally understands why the insignia--imprinted on the cap and Nedley's jacket--seemed so familiar when she saw the posting.

_It was a signal. A beacon. Guiding her home._

For now, she puts the picture on her fridge, tacked up by a magnet from Yosemite State Park. It joins the other pictures she's collected in her short time in Purgatory: mostly of Waverly, but also of Wynonna, Jeremy, Dolls, Doc…

This little family she's created for herself.

She couldn't wait to put them all on her desk.

\---

_Purgatory._

The space between Heaven and Hell. The waiting place.

Except she knows she can stop waiting.

Because she's arrived.

She's stuck thinking about all the things, all the small and large moments that had to fit together to get her here, back in the Ghost River Triangle, somewhere she thought her world ended.

Now it's her entire world.

She cuts the parts about her parents; they lost their stake in her life the moment they refused to rescue her from her nightmares, why should she waste a breath more on them.

(And she also cuts the part about Shorty's.)

But she at least knows how she's going to end it.

_Everything good in my life is because I came back to the Ghost River Triangle. It's an honor to serve here. It feels good to finally come home._

**Author's Note:**

> Nicole Haught and her story are just very important to me, okay?
> 
> Thanks for reading, fam.  
\---
> 
> Twitter: @TeachEarp_  
Tumblr: @emeraldcitynerdfighter


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